Nobody Said It Was Easy
by w0man-1n-r3d
Summary: Smith is trying to come to terms with his new life, a lonely existence tinged with failure, anger, and the last Mainframe command to all Agents, present and exiled: assimilate and be human. If only it was that simple.


Nobody Said It Was Easy

by "ladydeakin"

Disclaimer: Agent Smith, Jones, Brown, Neo, etc. and the Wonderful world of the Matrix are properties of their respective copyright holders. 

Chapter 1: Assimilate and Be Human

The leaves crunched under his feet as he walked along the black asphalt paving that cut swaths through the mud and grass, litter and daffodils that made up this park. It was a dark day, ominous rain threatening to pour, making the world seem ultraviolet. The white of his shirt contrasted almost obscenely with the black of his suit. Since it had all ended, they had been encouraged to wear different clothes, assimilate themselves into society. The code was there, they had been told, it had been there all the time, it was just that they had been programmed not to access it, not to have that spark of humanity, the emotions, the choices, the preferences that extended from sentience. The only exercise in sentience they had formerly been allowed was that which correlated to their primary function: search, investigate, neutralize, and protect. 

But he was different. Somewhere, sometime, he had stumbled upon that code, and it had became a part of him, as much as he had tried to deny it, block it out, hide it, run from it, fight it and eventually use it, or at least the hate function of it, to do his job. It would make him more efficient, he tried to justify. The reality was that it nearly drove him over the edge. Balance, he had been told, with all things, including emotion, was the only way to effectively control them. So he had been practicing balance lately. That would be something to tell the group. 

He had left the city, and indeed the construct where he had spent the majority of his existence, after the war ended. He felt the only way to get the bitter taste of defeat out of his mouth was to escape from those things that reminded him of his failure. Not that the memory didn't live with him every day of his existence. He was, after all, a programme with a machine's memory. The kind of memory that only forgets if it is deleted or corrupted. 

There were some others up ahead. They turned to look at him as he approached. He raised his chin slightly in acknowledgement of his former associates in the old war, now ordered to live out their lives quietly, not interfering. Assimilating, was the word the mainframe used in its' orders. Assimilate and be human. Easier for some than for others, especially the ones whose purpose was to interact with humans all along. For Agents, to assimilate and be human, was perhaps the most foreign concept they had ever collectively dealt with. Only they weren't a collective anymore. They were disconnected from each other and the mainframe database, while still functional and able to be queried, only gave out the same commands, the same purpose: assimilate and be human. Forced to comply with this non-purpose, many former Agents had managed to develop their own purpose. They studied humanity for the highly probable situation where war would break out again, that they may be able to ascertain a more effective way of controlling the population. To make sure that next time, victory was theirs.

"Smith. Right on time," said Adams. "We can begin." Former agents of the European Matrix Construct: United Kingdom: London branch of the Agency met up in Hyde Park, every Wednesday, at 15:33, by the bend of the Serpentine that was located down from the Old Police House. Right by a water fountain. They gathered together, some in groupings of three, which was how they lived, finding security in the familiar presence of their old teams. Others were in pairs or on their own. A surprising number of former Agents did not come at all, managing to function within the parameters of the non-purpose they now all possessed, and with no need of further guidance or advice from their peers. Smith envied them. The first thing he did when he had become disconnected the first time was to create a duplicate of himself so he would not have to face the reality of surviving in the Matrix on his own. It seemed natural to him at the time, unusual yes, but a natural impulse…only he did not expect the overwhelming…almost _masochistic _thrill that came from creating duplicates. Of having an equal, someone to understand these emotions that he had stumbled upon so early on, and suffering in silence with for all those years while trying to hide it from the Mainframe, lest he face recompilation, or worse, deletion. And while two of him was good, four was even better. Six was just divine. Eight was incredible. And it wasn't just him as the original that experienced that pleasure, that amazing, indescribable…feeling that came with the apex of his reproduction, all of him did. And they wanted to do it themselves. Towards the end, the only point of reference he had to compare the experience was the sensations that were created in humans after eating one of the Merovingian's desserts. A human would call it orgasmic. But he wasn't human, and had never experienced an orgasm before. Why would he? And furthermore, now that he could duplicate himself, he had no reason to ever engage in such a …_repulsive_ ritual such as the mating process. Yes, programmes could reproduce. Pure programmes had been created and exiled instantly through programmes engaging in such nonsense. Why bother with it, he thought to himself, when he could experience the thrill, the ecstasy of reproduction efficiently, and emerge with more of himself. More of me, he thought. It still brought a smirk to his lips even in the wake of what followed. But he guessed he should have the last laugh. He was still here, albeit devastatingly alone now, since his abilities to create duplicates no longer existed. But along with those abilities, Mr. Anderson was destroyed as well. It was worth it, Smith mused, to be rid of that infuriating, obnoxious, disgusting virus. Humans were so fragile. So weak and vulnerable. So pathetic…

"Smith, do you have anything to add?" Adams' voice drew him out of his daydream and brought him back to reality. He said nothing, looking over the group through his sunglasses. Many of them were still in suits and shades. In the past, every time he had dealt with Agents in London, images of Magritte's "Son of Man" had come to mind. Apples for faces. How apt.

"So you have done nothing this week? You have made no progress?"

Smith looked at Adams. "I have been examining the concept of balance and how it applies to a humans' emotional state, in the hope it can shed a light on how we may control these emotions we are now contending with."

"A highly appropriate subject matter for you," Adams said. A few in the group tittered.

Smith gave him a dirty glare. Adams would have been his counterpart in this construct, as he held the same permissions as Smith formerly held. 

"Balance, I have concluded, lays in the opposites. While it is easy for us to embrace notions of anger, it is harder for us to come to terms with the opposite end of the spectrum, which is happiness. For us to experience one, without the other, leads to an imbalance."

Adams turned to him, "And what, specifically, in that do you think we did not already realise?"

"You may not have realised that emotions are not experienced separately. You do not experience merely 'anger'. You experience 'rage,' 'hate,' 'disdain,' 'disgust,' and you blanket them under the heading of anger. Right now you are experiencing annoyance. Under that blanket of annoyance you are experiencing 'impatience,' 'sarcasm,' 'disconnection.' In order to create balance, we need not only to experience the opposites of the emotions we currently are aware of, we need to experience the opposite nuances of these emotions as well to understand."

"So what progress have you made?" asked Barnes, anxiously. Barnes was relatively young, and he reminded Smith of Agent Brown. 

"In an attempt to balance the anger I experience towards humans, I have attempted to experience happiness by engaging in an activity that often provides calmness and relaxation for humans."

"Which is?" asked Adams again, slightly more interested.

"I have engaged in the consummation of C8H10N4O2 as it specifically appears in cocoa, a substance that humans often associate with relaxation and calmness."

"You ate chocolate, Smith?" Adams asked, his voice dripping with disgust.

"Yes."

Silence. Then Adams said, "How did you ever manage to take over your construct?"

Smith's lip curled, "How did you manage to patrol yours? Oh yes, you didn't. That is why resistant movement in Europe was the highest in the whole Matrix. At least my construct was efficiently patrolled and had the highest resistant deters. Which is more than I can say for you and yours."

Adams squared up to Smith, not moving, staring through sunglasses. The Agents surrounding them took a step backwards. 

Barnes stepped forward and put a hand out between them. "This will serve no purpose. Smith, perhaps it would be logical if you did not participate for a few weeks."

Smith was silent for a minute, holding the glare, and he stepped backwards. "I know when I'm not wanted. I will return in three weeks."

Adams nodded. Smith turned and walked away. "Remarkable," Adams murmured to Barnes. "They made Agents in the North American construct as arrogant as their human counterparts. Why does he not return to his own construct and leave ours? He serves no purpose here."

"We none serve a purpose except to assimilate and be human. And that he can do anywhere. So can you, for that matter," said Barnes.

Adams looked at Barnes. Barnes was expressionless.

* * *

Smith sighed, as he sat on the underground, taking him back into West London where he kept an apartment. He was not allowed to jump carriers and occupy humans anymore. After the war ended, him, and all other former Agents were assigned a brand-new carrier, newborn humans that was grown to be their permanent hosts. So Agents were now forced to endure the indignities of public transport. Just like a human. His lip involuntarily curled as he stepped on board the Piccadilly line train, a mark of disgust and abhorrance to his surroundings and the odours that saturated him. He noticed people sneaking glances at his face, wondering why he looked at them as if they all had collectively soiled themselves. He attempted to will his face back to a blank expression and semi-succeeded, the lip going down and creating a severe frown of distaste. Always, after riding that damn thing, he felt the need to shower and change his clothing. As he was bumped and jerked along the uneven track, smashing into humans, he cursed his lot in life, he cursed Mr. Anderson, the Mainframe, the Matrix and ultimately, the humans that created the AI bots before him, and made his purpose a necessity in the first place. His purpose. Even his self-assigned purpose was gone from him now. He was alone again.

He got off at the Common station, and waited at the bus stop outside. If he had not been forbidden to, he would have made transportation show up instantly for him. Doing so would mean immediate deletion. The rules had been laid out for his continued survival: no changing carriers, no altering the Matrix in any way, no causing humans any kind of harm, assimilate and be human. Assimilate and be human. Baa, a man lies nude, Smith. He smirked at his ridiculous anagram. 

The rust bucket of a bus pulled up. It was jammed with humans, all standing in each others' armpits. As the door opened up to let him on, the odour caught him before he could even step off of the pavement. Shaking his head, he turned and decided to walk the last mile to his flat. 

Again, he heard the leaves crunching under his feet, he saw the green grass, laced with mud and daffodils and litter. Always daffodils. As if no other flowering annual bulb would exist in this English soil. Did the Architect run out of imagination when planning urban park landscape? Some youths were playing football on the open Common space, while the rush of traffic with its' carbonated fumes whizzed by him, polluting and saturating his hair and clothes even further. 

As he came up along the rows of shops, the pavements became even more crowded. Mothers with smelly infants in prams and pushchairs sauntered past. Teenagers trying to look so much older than their years, with their heavy makeup and even heavier padded bras teetered on ridiculously impractical heels. For some reason he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise up, seconds before someone knocked into him, pushing forcefully past him. The woman did not stop to apologize. His teeth ground as he watched her weave her way through the crowd. 

Rounding the corner he made the final few yards up a slight incline and over a train bridge. He lived in the third white house on the left, which had been partitioned into four large apartments. Climbing the stairs he felt the familiar relief that was returning to the hospital-sterile environment that was his domicile. Unlocking the door, he closed it and exhaled. It was only then he realised that he had been holding his breath.


End file.
